the road with a rough carpet spread
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: She wasn't supposed to fall in love with someone like him. She did. They were supposed to have an eternity together. They didn't.


**A/N:** Written for the Monthly Oneshot Competition, prompt 085 – leave, as well as the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, for the following three subjects:

Potions (write an angst) Prompts: idea, story, media, development, language, temperature, society, community, safety

History of Magic (write about someone not letting go) Prompts: basis, boyfriend, thought, policy, army, exams, week, video, technology, physics

Astronomy (write about a romance) Prompts: marriage, combination, philosophy, meaning, communication, road, energy

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><p><strong>the road with a rough carpet spread<strong>

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><p><strong>1. <strong>

She was in love with him, long before he fell in love with her. But he was way out of her league: the talk of the media since she'd been born, the pedestal that no-one could touch. She could only dream: dream that she was a goddess, beautiful and brave and everything the Boy of Light could want in a woman, because she didn't know him, and he'd probably never know of her, and there was absolutely no basis for her dreams.

Except it wasn't like a silly little crush on the face on a chocolate card character or a moving poster or a hero in a child's storybook, but something she couldn't define. Sometimes she liked to think it was a sign from the heavens, telling of a destiny intertwined with a man she'd loved…loved before she could comprehend the idea of love.

It wasn't even a tangible thing, an image she could touch, or a language she could understand. But she _was_ in love, and it wasn't a fleeting little crush she could just let go.

* * *

><p><strong>2.<strong>

The world developed. She met him in forbidden territory: a friend of her brother's, which both dragged him down and pulled him higher into the air. An unfair twist of fate, because she was the little sister and her brothers' friends were, by unwritten rule, out of bounds.

Things went in the wrong direction after that; he became closer, to her family, to her heart – but not to her, because there were too many other factors involved, too many other things that got in the way. And, when she finally had her chance, it was gone with the wind and her own insecurity, and all that came out of it was the temperature rising in her cheeks and burning them an ugly red as she fled.

* * *

><p><strong>3. <strong>

Society refused to part and let her spread a red carpet, but she managed in the end. Somehow, against the odds she managed to turn her face away from him, relieve him from her scorching gaze and let him look upon her instead. It was a sacrifice for which she bitterly wept, but it was an investment as well, one she hoped would be worth the immediate pain in the long run.

She was hopelessly in love, and not even if they were at the heads of opposing armies could she cease her love for him. And that was okay, because, in the end, he was destined to love her after all. Even if society laughed at how poor she was, compared to him. Of how she was the seventh born of a family with next to no social standings: yes, she was a Pureblood, but that was about all that spoke for her. That, and the whispers of her beauty behind her back, as if it was an insult instead.

But when insecurity ceased her she asked, and he told her what he loved: not beauty, nor prestige, not wealth, but her qualities – the fierceness, like a lioness protecting their cubs. The loyalty. The love.

And she was walking on the sky thereafter.

* * *

><p><strong>4. <strong>

They finished their final exams and graduated together, although he was a year older than her. The war had messed things up, taken things away: his parents, her brother – but it had given them something invaluable as well: closeness, and time.

And it was more than closeness between the two of them: their friends had never been nearer, and their close-knit community was perfect, self-contained. It didn't matter anymore what others said and did: what succeeded, and what failed. Because they had created something together: a life that would go forever on.

But even in that comfortable blanket of safety and security, she loved _him_ most of all. And he her.

They married a week out of school: a happy boisterous wedding that marked all her wishes coming true and the start of the road of their happy eternity.

* * *

><p><strong>5.<strong>

Their life together should have gone on forever. The war was spent. They were adults, making and maintaining the peace, and enjoying it. But that wasn't the case, and all she had left of that life was their wedding video, courtesy of Muggle technology being brought into their Wizarding World.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. They were supposed to have that time: the time to spend an eternity in love together. That was why they'd waited, waited until after the war, where no-one could tear his heart apart because of her, where her greatest battle was waiting for news of his safe return.

Even now, she fought that battle, ignoring the facts, the laws of nature. Ignoring what she waited for had long since gone without her, and that eternity had come to a quick and bittersweet end. She searched every nook and cranny of the world, from magical theory to Muggle physics to philosophy that made little sense tales so farfetched not even a child could put hope in them. But she did, and she searched, endlessly – not to bring him back nor join him before her time (because she knew the pain it would cause) but to touch him in that other world.

Even the end of eternity could not cause her love to fade. People told her to forget, to move on, that good riddance such an ill-fated match was finally through – but she was beyond self-doubt by then, beyond care, beyond everything but that warm flicker of love she cupped in her hands and refused to let go.

Everyone called it a waste when she finally died, hands still cupped and holding that flame in withered all age.


End file.
